Into the Mouth of Hell, Rode the Six Hundred
by Street faerie
Summary: In a future Middle Earth, Capt. Faramir finds himself on the front line about the charge into battle.


(before you read: this is a future of Middle Earth type of story. I've tried to figure out how the names of places would change in a two- three thousand year time frame, and how at the same time, how history could repeat itself.

That being said: Disclaimer: I do not own Middle Earth or the characters therein, characters that bear resemblance to Mr. Tolkien's characters from The Lord of the Rings are actually his. Other bits of things that I've borrowed are noted at the bottom of the text.)

Into the Mouth of Hell, Rode the Six-Hundred

The poster still hung on the wall like a summer memory on a winter's day, unable to do anything to stave off the cold. The paper had curled around the edges and faded into a lighter shade of the Independent party's campaign blue. It was a ghost of a hope that littered that campus, as if so many students were trying to overcome reality by sheer belief. Like the poster, the buttons announcing "Alfolfo for President" remained on the bitter backpacks and lapels of the unsatisfied students. A year later their wishful thinking hadn't made any progress, and the majority of the Indi student body of Albion College had turned their attention towards the war President Waurren was making upon the West. Along side last year's message were flyers announcing a rally and a march in the near-by city of Osliath; calling upon student solidarity against the president's imperialistic plans.

Sidonie expected that the professors would be there too, along with almost everyone else at Albion. Not just that particular college, but the whole of the colleges that made up Tirith University. Legend and history claimed that this had been the seat of kings once. Now it was host to thousands of undergraduate and graduate students and the countless townies who made life miserable for each other. It had been a university town for almost a thousand years, after a fire had gutted the entire city, burning countless worthless papers and histories. An untold number of century's records up in smoke, and little left over but half-remembered songs and lyrics. Sidonie, a music student and scholar, had learned that written records were more important than the oral tradition. Songs were distrusted as history because they were too easy to change. Her field of study was another prejudice against her. 

Having been a Unionist supporter had been enough for most students last year. And now, in supporting a war that she believed was necessary for the growth of their country, even if it was unpopular in the region (and only the region), she had learned to pretend. They accepted her silence as approval for their actions while ignoring the hard look in her commonly blue eyes. At least those in her circle had stopped bothering her with their liberal opinions and banter about this protest and what this person was saying. And of course, they believed of her what they wanted to. Sidonie was a Midlander. She was just as they were, proud, beautiful and painfully naïve in their thoughts. Only those from the Coast and the Suthling had actually supported either the president and the war. 

With a quick glance around to see if there was anyone else in the hallway, she tore down both the flyer and the poster and ripped them apart before throwing the faded paper into the waste paper bucket. And then a morbid thought crossed her mind: even if she had wanted to go and join the protest she had another obligation to fulfill. They were bringing home Faramir's body tomorrow. 

And suddenly she didn't want to think about tomorrow, or the day after that. To many things had been promised to her that were without warning taken away. Certainty for one, love for another. And Sidonie couldn't figure out which was worse because after being raised for years in a household that automatically threw its sons into the military, this betrayal hit her with a force of great waves on the beach during a violent storm. Just because she wore his ring on her finger, did that give her the right to question the actions of those she had always believed it? She felt as if her family was suddenly a lie. 

Once again she looked down in her songbooks and found the telegram and read it carefully hoping against hope that the letters had changed to meaningless babble. They remained stubbornly in the same place, and told the same message: 

Dear Mr. Stuart,

It is with regret that I am writing to confirm the recent telegram informing you of the death of your brother Capt. Faramir Stuart, officer, who was killed on 24 October ---- in Vinyadun. 

I fully understand your desire to learn as much as possible regarding the circumstances leading to his death. Recently provisions were made whereby there will be sent directly to the emergency address or the next of kin a letter containing further information about each person who dies overseas in the service of our country, and if this letter has not already received it may be expected soon.

I know the sorrow this message has brought you and it is my hope that in time knowledge of his heroic service to his country, even unto death, may be sustaining comfort to you.

I extend to you my deepest sympathy.

Sincerely yours,

General A. M. Walda

Faramir's youngest brother Edmund had given her his copy of the letter today before running off to his first class. She marveled at how alike the two of the were with the same roundness to their facial features and similar eyes. The casual way they could say the most thought provoking things as if mere brilliance simply was a gift that everyone had. Their walks set the brothers apart. Edmund never walked with grace and power. Faramir had had a way of entering a room that made everyone stop and look at him, while Edmund snuck in among the chatter before announcing his presence with a well timed quip. 

He wore black, but he hadn't taken to wearing the armband, Sidonie noticed. And in the wake of such terrible news, neither did she. For, there was so much that moved about them in a whirlpool of distrust and confusion that by clinging to their beliefs they were able to stay afloat.

"Are you coming with us this afternoon, Sid?" Edmund asked her. "We'll be leaving around 3-ish from outside Carv Hall."

"Will we be taking the train?" she asked.

"No, Dad's driving up in a car," he replied. The stone that he had pretended to be was cracking beneath the surface. "And we'd be more than happy to take you. I mean, I've, we've known you for years, and dad and mom have already considered you a daughter, and…. So don't think that it would be awkward or anything. We'll take you back to Osliath. At three, remember. Carv Hall. Take care."

The speed of which he had taken off suggested that he wasn't comfortable around the truncated fiancée; she was a ghost from another epoch he did not want to see or revisit. But that was Edmund, who had spent his life hidden away from other people, self-locked away in his room or in a daze when he was forced out. That he had even talked to her instead of taking off in the insect-like scurry of cockroaches caught in a bright light, suggested that there was a strange affection underneath those granite layers. 

In her own cyclone of the school she visited unhappy professors who were, like all academics, under their own pressures to appear world-weary of a torrent that was too important to be ignored, while gleefully accepting their own position to write and dissect the storm from the center. Sidonie remember a mixture of apologizes and condolences and extensions and brief one sentence lectures of which she ignored. Her own opinions were her treasure. 

And on a quiet wind she swept into her room to pack clothes appropriate for mourning. The roommate she noticed was in, a lady of medium height and long blonde hair surrounded by hobbit pots of paints. Eowyn, the girl who had in her head the idea of freeing the world from the domination of man, wore an indigo blouse and light brown trousers. She looked up when Sidonie entered the room, and noticed the slight girl's reddened eyes and her less-than-perfect brown hair may have been styled earlier today, but most certainly wasn't maintained. 

"Hey Sid," the roommate said before going back to her sign. Sidonie picked through her drawer and closet to find clothes and entomb them in her leather suitcase. "Are you going home?"

"Yeah." Sidonie replied. "Just for the weekend, I'll be back by Sunday evening."

"Oh, but don't you have that test in Farraday's class tomorrow?"

"I'm taking it Tuesday," she said.

"Farraday is letting you take a test at a different time?" Eowyn almost spilt one of the paints into the carpet at her reaction. Her pale hands stabilized the bottle of blue, and she gently placed it back down on the carpet. "I can't believe … Are you okay?"

She hadn't told her roommate, who had written "No War No" on the white piece of cardboard, what had happened. Sidonie didn't want conflict. She didn't want a debate about the evils of invading the West, or the lectures about the young going off to die for a cause they might or might not believe in. She wanted everything. For Faramir to be coming home to celebration, as a war hero, to the process of planning a wedding. She wanted to have taken the Western continent, and for their country to push itself forward. Instead it seemed the country was getting more and more disgraced. It seemed that all everyone was getting was tears.

"Don't cry," Eowyn said. "Here, these came for you today." She got up and handed the girl three envelopes marked with a familiar hand. "I guess there was some problem with ships or something."

"I don't think I can handle this," she said trembling. Her voice broke into ugly sobs. Eowyn put the offensive sign away to dry into the closet, letting her roommate stare at the strange medium that carried a dead voice across the water. She picked out and packed her clothes, and walked her down to Carv hall, keeping to their agreement not to mention the outside world. Then Edmund and General Stuart, his father, took her bag and put it into the trunk of the car, and equally silent ushered them all away from the college city keeping a mind not to notice the buses that had been lined up for tomorrow to transport students to Osliath for the protest. Their own bubble of grief was too thick to be pierced. 

No one talked much that night. They sat in the living room, around the 'tir, or else in the parlor, and listened to the radio, tensing and waited for news of any sort. And announcements were made about this troupe or that grouping as having taken injuries, but always less than the harm they did to the enemy. And Sidonie held her breathe when the voice mentioned the "B" Company of the 55th Battalion, and then she breathed again as she heard about the victory that General Aneirin Merddyn Roland had lead them to. Her father, and his troops, at least were safe. 

Kind neighbors had brought around food for the family along with soft, kind words that suggested kid gloves and soft lambs wool. General Stuart sat in his chair as if he was doing battle; in a way he was: he felt guilty having been called back home while others were not so lucky. His face hid a complex siege that was taking over his psyche, wondering why in all his long life he survived and his son hadn't. He listened with the gruesome horror of a person who still believed in the old phrase "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" even after he had seen people die in ways nightmares couldn't think of. And Sidonie read her letters quietly in an out of the way place and had her own nightmares that night.

By morning they didn't compete with the sober franticness as everyone in the household dressed in blacks and combed back hair and putting on make up to hide dark circles and tear-stained cheeks. After a breakfast provided by Mrs. Harris --another neighbor-- in which no one talked, they tried to make their way to the church for the funeral. And Sidonie sat beside Mrs. Stuart, who was wearing a black dress and a fishnet veil that covered half her face, in the car. Mrs. Stuart noticed the girl she thought of as a daughter playing with the engagement ring and she tried to smile, but the muscles in her face wouldn't work. She put an arm around her instead, and the two of them watched as police lined the streets in preparation for the protest that would take place that afternoon, and they tried to ignore the faces of the people who passed the procession on the street. They couldn't tell what emotions they felt. Leaning on the matron's arm, Sidonie thought of the first of the three letters.

Dear Siddy,

We have been on the march for days. I am tired and my body aches, and I wish you were here because I miss your back rubs. One of those would be really nice now. I don't know what they are showing you on the 'tir, but it isn't as bad as the media makes it seem. But we've been on the march for days and things are getting a little hard. We are still at war, we are still fighting for what we believe in. That has to count for something. 

Tell my brother that I still haven't found any elves yet. I know, I should write to him, but I'd rather write to you. There's a rumor that we may get pulled out but I hope not. It's like in those old myths we had to learn in school about the rise of King Aragorn and the destruction of the Ring of Power. We are fighting for mankind, for the survival of our way of life. It is common practice in my group to pretend we are heroes from the stories, like the ones you used to sing about. I wish that you could sing for us one of their songs.

Tomorrow we march and fight. Or maybe not, maybe tomorrow will never arrive. Or maybe tomorrow I'll be sent home and get to see you.

Give my love to your parents and my brother, but keep most of it for yourself.

Love,

Faramir

Mrs. Stuart handed a lilac scented handkerchief to Sidonie and they pulled up to the cathedral where others stood about in the cold before the family. Then they waited for the casket, and the six soldiers who carried the dead body of Faramir upon their shoulders came and lead the procession with General Stuart and his wife behind followed by Edmund who shyly gave his arm to Sidonie. They were a reverse wedding procession, she thought as she was lead inside the great hall, her feat in time with the organ's steady drone of a beat. 

Someone, her mother, sat down behind Sidonie, and patted her shoulder as the funeral mass began. She knew that she had been asked to talk, to say something about her beloved, but she couldn't think of any words that belonged to her. All she could think of was Faramir's voice reading the letters he had sent her, his resonant voice that used to riddle and tease her while they were in school together. In a mist of nothing, she waited for the ritual to end, sitting and standing and reciting sounds that might have been strung together to form a meaning. But she realized that these were important, because these were the exercises that kept them sane.

Dear Siddy,

I hope that you are doing well, and are happy, and you're wowing all of your professors. I received your letter a few days ago, the one that you must have sent months ago, and can say that I hope that everything worked out to your benefit. I'll get one of the privates to send this out asap, but I can't promise you that this letter will be gotten in a timely manner (you know how it is with all this low priority stuff). 

It's been raining for the last few days. The men under me are restless. We keep moving, but every day it feels as if we haven't done anything. Break down camp, march for hours, stop for lunch, keep marching, and set up camp later for the night. We wonder if this is all a drill, but we can hear firefights in the distance, and then we wonder why we are being kept out of it. 

When I get back I want to take you out to The Greens in Osliath. I know that its expensive, but I'm so sick of rations. I dream of that dinner we had a month before I left, just as I dream of your company. 

I don't think I'm suppose to be writing this, but Siddy, I try not to think about what we are doing. We are so ready for action, so ready to die for our country, and at the same time, we keep on this hamster wheel of a march. Forever in the march, reminded of the glories of the past that we try to surpass, and the constant dream of the distant future when we land back home in Havensport. But I do not think that we think of our next battle, I do not think that we believe that the march is ever going to end.

But I'll see you in the future, and you'll wear that pink dress that has the star embroidery on the skirt, and I'll be in my dress uniform. 

Until then you have my love.

Love,

Faramir

In the hall they stood up one last time and went to the coffin to view the body. Along the way, Sidonie thought of a song she had learned from her childhood and sang it so softly that only a spirit could hear it.

We rode out and dared not hope.

We rode out and dared not think.

With the present before

And the past at out heels

We do not measure the future.

The blackness will claim us if the light does not,

We ride in the eternal present

With our lost thoughts.

He was laid out in his dress uniform and Edmund remarked how he had never seen Faramir is such a position. He was too straight and formal, in life he had preferred being crooked, with arms akimbo or knees bent. His mother kissed his forehead and wept silently by the casket until her husband put his arm around her and dragged her away. The coffin was closed and picked up by officers Sidonie recognized as friends, their stiff faces forced their emotions into little boxes. All to better perform their function today. 

Out into the graveyard they marched in step, a flock of mourning birds keening over what they had collectively lost. They stood by his grave, where he would rest in the company of his fathers before him forever. Before the coffin was lowered into the ground with ceremony, the officers folded the blue flag and presented it to Mrs. Stuart who took it with grave dignity. Another officer played Taps upon a horn, breaking the silence that was suffocating the party. They were all forgetting life.

Siddy,

Tomorrow we do not march. Tomorrow we charge onto the battle field. Today, we broke from marching early, we have gotten where we wanted to be. There's a little stream near by, and despite being mucked up from mud, it charming. 

We lost five men yesterday. It was not an ambush, but rather a cleverly designed trap. Wyatt was one of them, he was marching right next to me and got hit. Lost his leg, lost too much blood, it was spewing everywhere, but a bit of shell got him in the heart too. I'm sorry, you probably don't want to hear about this, but it happened. We've heard rumors that the 26th was ambushed days ago, and the enemy stole mustard gas. Our spirits are not improved. We are too tired, too jumpy now. Everywhere the enemy is around. The weather has been black and dreary since weeks ago. I don't remember the sun. We huddle around anxious about battle and frightened, and we miss being dry and we miss being clean.

Some of my men doubt that we're going to survive this run. Some of my men talk about going home to girlfriends and wives, and that once this battle is over with we'll be gone. Sent home. The officers aren't sure what to make of this attack. The enemy has the advantage, and now they have gas. The trenches we're digging do not seem to be comforting. They are too narrow, too shallow and short. 

On the eve of battle I think of you. Right now you're practicing in the music hall, you have a voice that would make angels cry. Sing a song for me will you?

Love,

Faramir

The air did not grow into a twilight of anything, and farther away from the graveyard the distant sound of people marching and yelling could be heard. With enough ceremony, they lowered the body into the ground. Some milled about, some walked toward the open grave. Sidonie remained where she was, listening to the wind, and the commotion, and not angry that even here they could disturb the natural order of the world. 

The matron stood alone and cried without caring who might see her. The fishnet veil hid the bloated eyes from the world but couldn't muffle the sobs. She choked on her own tears until her husband tenderly put his arm around her as she gasped for breath. Through the little curtain, she looked up and stared before walking a little bit away where the ground was more steady. Where people wouldn't hear her wails so clearly and use them against her husband when time for a promotion was up. 

She had sobbed how it wasn't fair, and that they shouldn't have even been there in the first place. Somewhere in Mrs. Stuart's head was an accountant, keeping track and shaking his head telling her that the numbers didn't add up, that someone had gypped her, and wasn't she the fool to believe them?

Maybe, thought Sidonie, but maybe not. Her mind flew around the scratches of music that were to be found, and she tried to remember lyrics to songs that would be appropriate in her situation. What came when called were half remembered from the time of the mythical elves. Home is behind, and the World ahead. And all shall fade, to silver glass. 

Her mind was still for the moment before she picked up the handful of dirt and sang a tune that had been written not so long ago, but for an occasion that she couldn't remember. And she threw in the handful dirt, covering the eight point star at the head of the coffin as she sang.

I'll close your eyes my Billy,

Those eyes that cannot see,

And I'll bury you my Billy,

Beneath the maple tree.

And never again,

Will you Whisper to me.

She lifted her head, and walked back to the car where Edmund was slouching on the hood talking to one of the older men about Bradley, the oldest of the three brothers, who was also overseas. She looked across and counted the number of freshly dug graves, and the number of graves that had been dug freshly --gaping open like eyes to be filled-- and waited, imagining them when the snow would fall in one last mockery of winter, faintly falling and falling faintly upon all the living and the dead. 

Annotations: 

The title "Into the Mouth of Hell Rode the Six Hundred" is from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade"

The name Aneirin Merddyn Roland comes from David Jones's In Parenthesis. Aneirin penned _Y Gododdin, _which details the raid of 300 Welsh men into England, and was a disaster. Roland is in reference to _La Chansons de Roland_, a medieval French text about Charlemagne and a bloody war (is there any other kind) against the Pagans. 

__

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori translates into something like: It is a sweet and honorable thing to die for one's country.

The Lyrics "I'll close your eyes my Billy" are from _Mama, Look Sharp!_ in the musical _1776_. 

Finally, I paraphrase James Joyce last paragraph of "The Dead" in my last paragraph. 

There are a sundry of references to Tolkien, I've tried to keep the characters as close to their original forms as possible, but choosing to keep to characters rather than plot. I have another story that I'm working on with Eowyn, and I couldn't see my conception of her mourning over anyone at this moment in time.


End file.
